Spurred by county summit, committee chair promises regular meetings to track drug’s impact on community

Village of Belgium officials made it clear that they aren’t going to let the heroin problem sweeping through the county go unnoticed.

Trustee Jason Acevedo, who is the chairman of the village’s Public Safety

Committee, said at Monday’s Village Board meeting that the group will meet monthly for the foreseeable future to listen to ideas on how to handle the growing problem.

Acevedo attended the Ozaukee County Heroin Summit in Cedarburg last month and was “blown away.”

“It really hits home how big the problem is in both our community and the county,” he said.

Acevedo noted part of the summit focused on the string of burglaries in the village last summer that were tied to drug use. He said he is trying to organize an “intimate discussion or roundtable” with community stakeholders in July.

“We want to talk to both of our marshals and hear what they see,” Acevedo said. “We had a meeting earlier this month and people were saying ‘I see what happens at this house’ or ‘This happens on the bike trail.’

“If we know something isn’t right in our village, why can’t we do something to stop this? I think we can. That’s the focus for us over the next five to six months.”

Acevedo said he will reach out to Rep. Duey Stroebel, the Cedarburg state legislator who helped organize the Heroin Summit, to “assist with the roundtable discussion.”

Village President Rich Howells, who also attended the summit, echoed Acevedo.

“I am not ignorant to the situation, but I was blown away by some of the information,” Howells asid. “Heroin has become more of a problem than our DWI problem. We can’t turn a blind eye to this.”

Acevedo encouraged residents to take advantage of prescription pill drop-offs for those who don’t need to finish prescriptions or have extra pills laying around.

Municipal police stations and the

Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Department have secure prescription drug collection units, which are available year-round.